


The Persistence of Memory

by CapriciousKapro



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Ashe shoots a rabbit), Animal Death, Character Study, Gen, POV B.O.B. (Overwatch), RNG said Bob's birthday is Christmas and I ran with it, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapriciousKapro/pseuds/CapriciousKapro
Summary: Bob and Ashe through the years.
Kudos: 6





	The Persistence of Memory

When Bob comes online for the first time, it’s to frosted windows and twinkling lights, the smell of pine sharp in untested olfactory receptors. A hint of chill bites at his chassis from windows tall and proud at his back, but heat rolls in from a fireplace across the expansive room (electric, elegant, and the false crackle of logs and flame adding to the ambiance of the room). A man, stern and grey (gaunt cheeks, thin downturned lips, hand pushing a strip of pepper-grey hair back with a twitching glance in irritation as if unused to its length) looms over the newly onlined omnic.

“It’s Christmas. You know what that means, boy?”

Bob blinks green eyelights at the man, digesting the words. Christmas. A winter solstice holiday. He nods.

“Right. You’re here to make our little Liz’s day memorable,” he says, voice firm. “Do whatever she asks you to, don’t ask questions.”

The man stares, and Bob nods again, unsure if this interaction requires further response. Something he sees appears to satisfy, however, because he turns his attention to a delicate pocket watch, a fine silver chain attached to polished metal.

He hums under his breath, a considering tone rather than musical, and stalks off without another word.

Bob peers at the room, emptied of life except the bright lights draped across grasping arms of the pine tree at his side and the artificial crack of fire. Though left without particular instruction, Bob does not find himself idle, enamored with the sight of everything. The overhead lights are off (a chandelier of gleaming crystal, reflecting pinpricks of the tree’s LED adornments), but the curtains, heavy with a belt of rope easing them open, finish what the other objects in the room started. The flat-white snowfall reflects morning light into the room. Every corner, every present under the tree, and even the dark Persian rug is illuminated, refracted light dancing rainbow from the tip of the rug to his feet. He shifts a leg and watches the colors cascade with the motion.

It is dawn of Christmas day. Bob is alone, but not for long. He will make “little Liz” happy and ask no questions.

\---

“Bob, did you see? Think I hit it!” Liz calls out to him, a shrill joy in her voice he hasn’t heard in weeks. The volume of her voice doesn’t matter now—the crack of a gunshot piercing the air would have scared away more than she ever could.

The omnic nods to his young charge, her school clothes still on and increasingly dirt-smeared from the day’s activity, muddied scrapes prominent against the white blouse.

Yesterday was her eighth birthday. Despite promises to the contrary, a last minute message (23:19, making her several hours late for her usual bedtime) informed the pair that neither of her parents would be able to visit that day, nor for the rest week. Their longest business trips yet, and Bob would not mind were it not for Liz’s growing distress.

Her dour mood rained against her and schoolmates through the day, only letting up at the prospect of Bob taking her out shooting—gunning for a living, moving target for once. Bottles and makeshift targets in the back of the estate could only entertain her for so long. Bob promised himself to keep a closer eye on her than usual today—her swinging mood an unpredictability on top of this new environment, dozens of miles out from the city. Yet it's safely away from anyone who would bother them too, saving Bob the chance of any metaphorical heart attacks.

The bramble grew thicker here, untouched. A solitary dirt road, barely thick enough to be called a two-way, climbed its way out of the city to nowhere at all. The air was cleaner here, cooler and unpolluted by noise or fumes. It dawns on him that he wouldn’t mind revisiting this place, or somewhere like it. It’s peaceful out here in a way the heart of the city isn’t, wide open and horizon clear aside from the rocky crags that wave and crest across the countryside. The skyscrapers and sprawling mansions still register as home, but the freedom here feels different in a way he’s not sure he has the words to express. Away from prying eyes, nothing larger than a coyote to cross paths with.

As they approach the site of her first kill, Bob signs “clean,” a hard cut of palm over palm. The rabbit had died quickly, a shot across its skull, likely into its brain. A jerky twist of the body, leg twitching midair. Then dead. She’s done well. Bob knows she’s a good shot, but out here the rules are different.

Liz smiles at him, smiles like she won one of those oversized trophies that clutter the family office and not just handed praise from her butler-cum-guardian who’s seen her shoot a thousand times, and finds himself no less impressed by her steady hand and dedication each time.

She crouches down, knees settling onto tufts of grass as she examines the rabbit. He’ll be washing stains of all sorts out later, he thinks, eyeing its brown, bloodied pelt. But every moment of this day is worth it if it means getting her mind off her ever-absent parents.

The sun is low, low in the sky and Bob worries when they finally reach the truck if he hasn’t kept her out too late, but she’s smiling all the way home and counts it as a win.

\---

The funeral happens on a Thursday. Elizabeth had no interest in showing, her father long-since out of her life, but Bob gently ushered her along. Two fingers dust two of his other hand. “Short," he coaxes.

He’s not wrong; the funeral only lasts an hour. Despite the big business and web of connections, there are not many interested in his personal life. Only Elizabeth, and a handful of extended family. She’s asked if she wants to speak. Scoffs and tosses white hair over her shoulder like it’s something beneath her. Bob doesn’t think it is, wouldn’t think less if she were to mourn her father even now. But the gang leader has nothing to say, and so they sit.

It’s open casket. Heart failure compounded by stress, nothing gruesome. Nothing painful, except that last handful of moments where he must have known something was wrong, plane-bound to Tokyo. He wonders if it feels the same as he when goes offline, the slip into an unconscious state, or if it was sharper than that. Something less like sleep and more like the pain of crushed plating, pinched wires.

Her father’s death was nearly a week ago, and Elizabeth had insisted Bob spend his days sorting through possessions to expedite the process. The house is empty and hollow, a shell of the family it never was. She rarely went back, preferring the home made with Deadlocks to the mirage composed of holidays barely celebrated, neglected conversations, dinners for one. Only Bob to help fill echoing corridors and devoid rooms.

Elizabeth wants out, and Bob can’t blame her.

He knows this is not what family should be. And then there’s Deadlock, both better and worse. Not bound by blood but by laws of their own making. Elizabeth calls it family, but Bob isn’t sure. The only family he’s ever known is her. Or he thinks so, anyways. Hallmark movies would say otherwise, but when did he ever do things by the book? No, Elizabeth is his family. And he would put up with his extended family in Deadlock too, if that’s what it took to not lose what little he has to call his own.

Still, thick fingers weave around a delicate chain, an old silvery thing pooled in the bottom of his jacket pocket. As Elizabeth's distant relatives reflect upon times gone by, Bob finds his thoughts sliding between past and future. About old trinkets left behind.

He wonders, core flush with worried heat, if he has a place in her future.

An omnic can only hope.


End file.
